Abstract
Education has entered a new era of race relations under the conditions of neo-liberalism. Particularly within a US race discourse, promoting critical race understanding is challenged by the dominant view that race problems are not only symptoms of market, or capitalist, relations, but are equally solvable by the very same market mechanism through increased deregulation and choices. This chapter examines the detours around confronting race when personal choice and market efficiency are the ruling ideology for social maladies, such as racism in schools. We present the uptake of race within a neo-liberal worldview, its understanding of collective responsibilities for social inequality and the contradictions that are produced when racio-political problems are defined through race-neutral justifications.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena (1995), 515 U.S. 200.
Althusser, L. (1971) Lenin and philosophy, B. Brewster (trans.) (New York: Monthly Review Press).
Bell, D. (1987) And we are not saved: the elusive quest for racial justice (New York: Basic Books).
Bell, D. (1992) Faces at the bottom of the well: the permanence of racism (New York: Basic Books).
Bell, D. (1995) ‘Brown v. Board of Education and the interest convergence dilemma’ in K. Crenshaw, N. Gotanda, G. Peller and K. Thomas (eds.) Critical race theory (New York: The New Press).
Bell, D. (2004) Silent covenants (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Bobo, L. and Smith, R. (1998) ‘From Jim Crow racism to laissez-faire racism: the transformation of racial attitudes’ in W. Katkin, N. Landsman, and A. Tyree (eds.), Beyond pluralism: the conception of groups and group identities in America (Urbana: University of Illinois Press).
Bonilla-Silva, E. (2003) Racism without racists (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield).
Bowles, S. and Gintis, H. (1976) Schooling in capitalist America (New York: Basic Books).
Bourdieu, P. and Passeron, J. (1990) Reproduction in education, society, and culture (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE). First published in 1977.
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954), 347 U.S. 483.
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1955), 349 U.S. 294.
Crenshaw, K., Gotanda, N., Peller, G. and Thomas, K. (eds.) (1995) Critical race theory (New York: The New Press).
Dimitriadis, G. (2010) ‘Lessons learned from Enron: what the business world really has to teach us’, in Z. Leonardo (ed.), Handbook of cultural politics and education (Dordrecht: SensePublishers).
Giroux, H. (2003) The terror of neoliberalism (New York: Routledge).
Giroux, H. (2010) ‘Neoliberalism, pedagogy, and cultural politics: beyond the theater of cruelty’ in Z. Leonardo (ed.), Handbook of cultural politics and education (Dordrecht: SensePublishers).
Gotanda, N. (1995) ‘A critique of “our Constitution” is color-blind’, in K. Crenshaw, N. Gotanda, G. Peller and K. Thomas (eds.), Critical race theory (New York: The New Press).
Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), 539 U.S. 306.
Harvey, D. (2003) The new imperialism (New York: Oxford University Press).
Harvey, D. (2005) A brief history of neoliberalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Ignatiev, N. (1997) ‘The point is not to interpret whiteness but to abolish it’. Talk given at Making and Unmaking of Whiteness Conference, University of California, Berkeley. Available online at: www.postfun.com/racetraitor.
Klein, N. (2007) The shock doctrine: the rise of disaster capitalism (New York: Henry Holt).
Lareau, A. (2000) Home advantage (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield).
Lareau, A. (2003) Unequal childhoods (Berkeley: University of California Press).
Leonardo, Z. (2004) ‘The color of supremacy: beyond the discourse of “white privilege”,’ Journal of Educational Philosophy and Theory, 36(2), 137–152.
Leonardo, Z. (2005) ‘Through the multicultural glass: Althusser, ideology, and race relations in post-Civil Rights America’, Policy Futures in Education, 3(4), 400–412.
Leonardo, Z. (2007) ‘The war on schools: NCLB, nation creation, and the educational construction of whiteness’, Race Ethnicity & Education, 10(3), 261–278.
Leonardo, Z. (2009) Race, whiteness, and education (New York: Routledge).
Leonardo, Z. (2010) Whiteness studies and education: making the familiar strange, http://www.niusileadscape.org/bl/?cat=57
Lopez, I. H. (2006a) White by law (New York: New York University Press).
Lopez, I. H. (2006b) ‘Colorblind to the reality of race in America’, The Chronicle of Higher Education: The Chronicle Review, 3 November 2006.
Lopez, I. H. (2007) ‘“A nation of minorities”: race, ethnicity, and reactionary colorblindness’, Stanford Law Review, 59(4), 985–1063.
McLaren, P., Leonardo, Z. and Allen, R.L. (2000) ‘Rated “CV” for cool violence’ in S. Spina (ed.), Smoke & mirrors: the hidden context of violence in schools and society (Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield).
Mills, C. (1997) The racial contract (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press).
Omi, M. and Winant, H. (1994) Racial formation in the United States: from the 1960s to the 1990s, 2nd edition (New York: Routledge).
Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle Sch. Dist. No. 1 (2007), 551 U.S. 701.
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), 163 U.S. 537.
Polanyi, K. (1954) The great transformation (Boston, MA: Beacon Press).
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), 438 U.S. 265.
Roediger, D. R. (1994) Towards the abolition of whiteness: essays on race, politics, and working class history (New York: Verso).
Stiglitz, J. (2006) Making globalization work (New York: W. W. Norton).
Sweatt v. Painter (1950), 339 U.S. 629.
Takao Ozawa v. U.S. (1922), 260 U.S. 178.
U.S. v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923), 261 U.S. 204.
Willis, P. (1977) Learning to labour (New York: Columbia University Press).
Suggestions for further reading
Gillborn, D. (2008) Racism and education: coincidence or conspiracy? (London: Routledge).
Prendergast, C. (2003) Literacy and racial justice: the politics of learning after Brown v. Board of Education, 3rd edition (Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press).
Taylor, E., Gillborn, D. and Ladson-Billings, G. (2008) Foundations of critical race theory in education (London: Routledge).
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2013 Zeus Leonardo and Hoang Tran
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Leonardo, Z., Tran, H. (2013). What Is So Liberal about Neo-Liberalism? Schooling, Law and Limitations of Race-Neutral Reforms. In: Brooks, R., McCormack, M., Bhopal, K. (eds) Contemporary Debates in the Sociology of Education. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137269881_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137269881_10
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-44415-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-26988-1
eBook Packages: Palgrave Education CollectionEducation (R0)